A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [52]
‘Just where you would place your brothers.’
‘Road-sweeper? Little washerboys? Barber? Yes, little barbers. Pankaj would just look at them and feel that he want a trim. And what about your mother?’ He paused. ‘Sha-ma! It just hit me. Pankaj would say that your mother ain’t a Hindu at all! I mean, look at the facts. Marrying off her favourite daughter in a registry office. Sending the two little barbers to a Roman Catholic college. As soon as Pankaj see your mother he would start making the sign of the cross. Roman Catholic, that’s what she is!’
‘Why don’t you shut your mouth?’ Shama tried to sound amused, but he could tell that she was getting angry.
‘Ro-man Cat-o-lic! Roman cat, the bitch. You think she could fool Pankaj? And here you have Pankaj bringing the woman a message of hope, saying that Hindus should take in converts and treat them like their own, saying that it is not necessary to be born a high-caste to be a high-caste. A message of hope, man. And what? Your mother running the man down, when she should be grateful like hell, kissing the man foot. Gratitude, eh?’
‘I just hope this Pankaj Rai come to lift you out of this gum-pot you surely going to land yourself in. Go ahead.’
‘Shama.’
‘Why you don’t wrap your little tail up and go to sleep?’
‘Shama, we have another problem, girl. You think any good Hindu would get married to a Roman Catholic girl, if he was really a good Hindu? Shama, you know what? It look to me that your whole family is just one big low-caste bunch.’
‘You should know. You married into it.’
‘Married into it. Ha! You think that make me happy. I look as if I happy?’
‘Why you should look as if you happy? It should make you miserable. Is the first time in your life you eating three square meals a day. It giving your stomach too much exercise, I should say.’
‘Licking up my stomach, you mean. My biggest item of food and drink in this house is soda powder and water.’
He pressed his foot against the wall and with his big toe drew circles around one of the faded lotus decorations.
He intended to discuss the Aryans less flippantly with Hari. He imagined that Hari, like Pundit Jairam and many other pundits, would welcome disputation. But at the long table Hari remained cold, his wife looked aghast, and Mr Biswas left him to his food.
When Hari had changed and was sitting in the verandah upstairs, humming from some holy book in his cheerless way, Mr Biswas, piqued and anxious to provoke some reaction, brought out his copy of Reform the Only Way and showed it, drawing Hari’s attention to the inscriptions. Hari looked briefly at the book and said, ‘Mm.’
Having failed with Hari, Mr Biswas decided that it would be prudent to withhold the message of hope from the other brothers-in-law, who were less intelligent and more temperamental.
About a week later Seth met Mr Biswas in the hall and said, laughing, ‘How is your dear friend Pankaj Rai?’
‘What you asking me for?’ Mr Biswas nearly always spoke English at Hanuman House, even when the other person spoke Hindi; it had become one of his principles. ‘Why you don’t ask Hari, the stargazer?’
‘You know Rai nearly went to jail?’
‘Some people would say anything.’ But Mr Biswas was disturbed by this news about the purist.
‘These Aryans say all sorts of things about women,’ Seth said. ‘And you know why? They want to lift them up to get on top of them. You know Rai was interfering with Nath’s daughter-in-law? So they asked him to leave. But a lot of other things left the house when he left.’
‘But the man is a BA.’
‘And LLB. I know. I wouldn’t trust an Aryan with my great-grandmother.’
‘Is a trick. The man is a dear friend. A purist. Pankaj wouldn’t do a thing like that. You never hear him talk, that’s